On Thu, 4 Nov 2010 16:16:26 +0100 fons@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: > On Thu, Nov 04, 2010 at 10:43:12AM -0400, David Santamauro wrote: > > > I see that analogy as very fitting but the conclusion as simply > > wrong. A novelist or poet does, indeed, spend years (a lifetime > > even) gaining a mastery of not only the "pencil", but also the > > words and sentence structure. My 8-year old daughter will attest to > > the difficulty involved and the years it takes to master moving her > > writing instrument to produce the correct glyph--not to mention > > putting all those glyphs together to form words, sentences and > > ultimately a coherent story that expresses her intent. > > I don't think the analogy is fitting at all. Like I wrote to Drew earlier, I'm a firm believer that music is a language and any parallels drawn between the two are justified. > A novelist's or poet's > art does not consist of being able to write or push keys on a > keyboard. It consists of creating a good text. He/she could just > dictate it to someone writing it down or typing it, and nothing would > be lost. But wouldn't there have to be some initial investment in learning in order to even be able to dictate? > > Now you could argue that a composer's art does not consist of being > able to play all the instruments he/she writes for. So why not use > a computer to find out how things sound. Simple fact is that anyone > deserving to be called a composer does not depend on being able to > hear the exact reproduction of what he/she writes. Entire songs, > musicals, symphonies have been orchestrated or arranged rather well > by composers (not only the classical ones) just sitting at their desk, > or at most using a piano. They can do this because they know their > trade. Which takes some time to learn. Absolutely. They can do this because the vocabulary and syntax is ingrained deep in the brain. > > What we see today is a lot of people 1) unable to play any instrument > or sing and 2) unable to create any music except by trial and error > aided by technology. Yet they'd call themselves a musician. By that > measure, they could call themselves painters, sculptors, writers, > dancers, and whatever they want. And I'm sure many do. David _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list Linux-audio-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user
